


To Endings and Beginnings

by thesalukihusker



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Established Relationship, Moving, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 09:30:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20112910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesalukihusker/pseuds/thesalukihusker
Summary: It's all too much right now.





	To Endings and Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: this is my very first fanfic. I wanted to write a post-s3 fic. Borrowing “Time After Time” from season 2’s Snow Ball for this one; it’s also one of my favorite songs. I don’t know if in canon Jonathan has a favorite food, so I gave him one. Possible Kleenex warning.

"If you’re lost you can look and you will find me, time after time…”

He’s gone.

Nancy watches the moving van leave the Byers' now-former home, followed by Jonathan’s car. She feels sick, disillusioned. This wonderful year they’d had together, fighting monsters, saving the world again. Finally acting on their feelings for each other. Movies and dinner and time together. Internships together, the budding young journalists taking down the man together. Starting their senior year together. Together. That word plays over and over in Nancy's mind. 

Together is gone, replaced by an emptiness. They are still very much that, yes – but now, it’ll be from afar. Everything feels disorienting.  
Nancy takes one last look at the Byers' home – she had spent so much time here – and calls for Mike. She needs to go home. She needs to cry, and be angry, and be alone. It’s all too much right now.

###

“If you fall I will catch you, I’ll be waiting, time after time…”

Nancy and Mike returned to an empty house. Last night, the Wheelers and Byers families gathered here for a farewell dinner. Wine, and memories, and spaghetti and meatballs, Jonathan’s favorite. Neither were very hungry. They didn’t want the dinner to end, because that meant they were closer to the inevitable. They were hand-in-hand the entire night, not wanting to leave the other’s side. Their final night together for what will be months was spent here. 

It’s quiet in the house. It makes Nancy even more upset.

She’s sitting on her bed, holding the pillow that he slept on last night. Her eyes are red from all the crying, her mind replaying all the happy moments. How does she even begin to go on from here?

Nancy walks over to her desk to grab her journal. She needs to write it all down. It’s cathartic, the next best thing to talking to Jonathan.

She opens the drawer – and there’s a package there. She immediately recognizes the handwriting on the front. It’s from Jonathan. Did he leave this last night?

She opens the package, and is crying again.

It’s a mixtape.

"For Nancy. Fall of 1985. It’s not an end, it’s a new beginning. Xo"

Inside the envelope is a note.

"Dear Nancy,

This is the hardest note I’ve ever written. I don’t even know where to begin. Just two months ago we started our final year of high school together. We walked in hand-in-hand. It wasn’t a secret anymore. We didn’t want it to be. The suburban girl and the loner were together. 

I want you to know, Nancy, how you’ve changed me. You’re the girl I only dreamed of having. And when it happened, the world almost ended again. But we faced it together. It took every bit of courage I had to kiss you at Murray's. Because of you, I’ve had that courage, that strength, to face so many things. You awakened something inside of me, something that showed me that there is good in the world. That I deserved to be happy too. To love and to be loved. The me that existed before you is much different than the me that exists now. I never want to go back to that person I was before you.

I’ve left you a little something. All of these songs have been a part of us, and I want to hold on to them forever. I love you, Nancy. I already miss you so much. I’ll see you in a couple of months. Keep my side of the bed warm.

Xo, forever.  
Jonathan"

###

She’s crying again. Nancy puts the mixtape in her stereo. And in that moment, she’s back in a red dress in the Hawkins Middle School gym.

“Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick  
And think of you  
Caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new  
Flashback, warm nights  
Almost left behind  
Suitcases of memories  
Time after…”

Suitcases of memories. Monster hunting. A hotel in the middle of nowhere where they requested a double. Murray’s bunker. Warm nights spent at the lake, with each other. Nights spent comforting each other after all the horrors they’ve seen. Wonderful nights, in each other’s arms, hoping that morning would be slow to come. Not hiding anymore from themselves, or the world, what they felt for each other.

Nancy puts the note back in her desk drawer as Cyndi Lauper sings about love and togetherness. Nancy knows he’ll be a phone call away, that she’ll see him at Christmas. She’s already counting down the days.

She lays on her bed, still holding the pillow, and closes her eyes.


End file.
